MMOs and game design

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lack of response

What is it with random groups in WoW these days that people are so reluctant to speak in party chat? I don’t expect extended witty conversations (although that would be entertaining), but here’s the example that annoyed me this week.

If I’m tanking one of the new instances and some of the other players seem a bit rough or undergeared, I’ll pause before each boss to ask if everyone knows the tactic. If I do this, it’s because I think this will be smoother than just rushing in. So why do people not speak up if they need to be instructed on what to do? I’m happy to tell them or else I wouldn’t have offered in the first place. I haven’t even been checking their gear score, only that the total dps in group is sufficient.

I had a prize example of this in Forge of Souls. I paused, asked if people knew the fight, and one guy said ‘gogogo’, got his army of ghouls out and then promptly got himself killed by attacking the end boss when it cast mirrored soul. Darwinism in action, although I’d have been pissed off if that had caused a wipe. It’s also irritating when the guy happens to be the top dps in the group, so he understands some aspect of his class.

But I felt that even if the rest of the group hadn’t known tactics, they would have preferred to hide at the back like shadows and hope enough of the rest knew what to do to pull them through, rather than speak up and ask for advice. What gives? None of them even spoke up to say that they did know it. Is it because they’ve never had to learn tactics for any fight? Or just think it doesn’t apply to them? It is a mystery to me.

What is clear is that addressing a question to the group will often get no answers. If you really want to pin down the shadow, you have to put a spotlight on them and call them out by name. This is slow and laborious and will annoy everyone else while they wait.

So your options are: Kick people who don’t answer quickly enough (assuming you have been in the instance long enough to kick people), explain every fight where tactics might matter in a brief sentence without asking whether the explanation is needed and hope people can read even if they can’t talk, hope you’re overgeared enough it’ll be ok if some people don’t know the fight, or wipe.

But I think it is the lack of response, as if you were PUGging with a bunch of shadows, which drives me most nuts at the moment about tanking pick up groups. I would really prefer having a squad of NPCs along if that’s what the players are going to do, at least they’d follow orders.